Su Yu

Su Yu (10 August 1907-5 February 1984) was a general of the People's Republic of China. He fought in the Chinese Civil War, Second Sino-Japanese War, and the Sino-Indian War, commanding the East China Field Army in 1949.

Biography
Su Yu was born on 10 August 1907 in Huitong County, Hunan, Qing Dynasty-era China to a Dong Chinese family. In 1926 he joined the Communist Youth League of China and joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1927, and during the 1930s, he commanded guerrillas in the Jiangxi Soviet against the Kuomintang. Su Yu delayed the Kuomintang south of Zhejiang during the Long March and stayed there until 1937, when he fought in the Cheqiao Campaign against the Imperial Japanese Army when the communists and nationalists allied to resist an invasion by the Japanese Empire. Su Yu expanded Shandong and Jiangsu communist bases by attacking nationalist bases, leading to the New Fourth Army Incident.

After the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War/World War II in 1945, Su Yu was made commander of the East China Field Army in the resumed war against the nationalists during the Chinese Civil War. In July 1946, his 30,000 communist troops defeated 120,000 American-equipped nationalist troops seven times, killing or capturing 53,000 Kuomintang soldiers in the Central Jiangsu Campaign. In the Huaihai Campaign of November 1948-January 1949, which saw the Battle of Xuzhou, he destroyed 4 Nationalist armies in concert with Ch'en Yi's armies and single-handedly destroyed the fifth.

Mao Zedong was originally going to choose Su Yu to command the People's Liberation Army (PLA) expeditionary force sent to fight in the Korean War, but shell fragment wounds from the 1930s made Su Yu ill, and Peng Dehuai was chosen instead. He was made Grand General in 1955, and died in 1984 at the age of 77.